the2ofusr1
Well it's good the US will give them financial aid so they can pay their gas bill .I wonder if that will be in gold or some BRIC currency ...time
will tell ....peace

Whatever the "currency", it will go to Russia for the debts.

Which might be the plan in the first place.

Russia benefits from the whole charade.

So it is bad that a deotor has to pay back their debts now?

No it's not bad.

But what prevents the debt from adding up again later?

Debt = Slavery and economic insurrection.

It's happening right now.

Why is there debt in the first place?

Corruption?

That's easy, Russia already removed their special discount, they have a Northern Pipe, and a Southern Pipe comming on line in a year, they can just
no longer sell stuff to the bad debtor Ukraine. They can fend for themselves.

I thought the 94 treaty was a bad idea then.Now people see why.I also Thought Ukraine joining NATO wasn't worth the trouble with no benefit.I also
voted against GW Bush twice AND against Obama twice.All to no avail.
In short what ever administration is in power in the US,they will make the stupidest political decisions.

Obama is surely RIGHT not to want to start a war over Crimea.
But arguably he is tactically wrong to say so, and give away a bargaining weapon (though Putin could probably have guessed).
And also mistaken in taking up uncompromising public stances without intending to back them up with force, which sets him up for the humiliating
snub.
The art of diplomacy is not in the public speech-making; it is in the secret discussions behind the scenes.

You do realize that Russia had a agreement with Ukraine to have 25,000 troops in Crimea and that Crimea was a fully autonomous region of Ukraine . So
Russia did not invade Ukraine as was reported in the western MSM and Crimea decided to separate from Ukraine and join Russia .The province of Quebec
in Canada has had similar referendum to separate from Canada in the past and may have another one in the near future ....peace

You do realize that Russia had a agreement with Ukraine to have 25,000 troops in Crimea and that Crimea was a fully autonomous region of Ukraine . So
Russia did not invade Ukraine as was reported in the western MSM and Crimea decided to separate from Ukraine and join Russia .The province of Quebec
in Canada has had similar referendum to separate from Canada in the past and may have another one in the near future ....peace

AND they are allowed to move around Crimea, how else can they get into and out of their bases

In this whole sordid affair, there is one image branded in my heart and mind.

Ukrainian soldiers marching towards their barracks, unarmed but for their flag.

Singing their national anthem.

Whilst Russian soldiers scream at them and fire their rifles over their heads.

Those soldiers put the Russian army, Putin, the EU and the US to shame.

In this whole sorry game these 'leaders' play, the consequences for the Ukrainian people are the only dimension that matters. They have my heartfelt
sympathy, respect and condolences. They must have steel in their blood to have resisted temptation and not retaliated to the provocation they have met
with such stoic resolve. A lesser people would have crumbled and fought, as the fight or flight mechanism is in built in our psyche. If the conflict
does escalate and they do eventually retaliate my heart and mind will be with them.

There are literally thousands of people at work here that are working towards crippling the Russians where it really hurts thus not giving Russia the
capacity to act out in this manor again ever...

The EU is still quite on the subject but make no bones about it this is war

The world and it's big players will strangle Russia's economy all in good time, there's no need to start a WWIII putting the worlds population at
risk,

During this process Russia and her allies and friends from failed states and dictatorships will seek to retaliate with hostilities, this will be the
next step in all this so keep an eye on Iran, North Korea, China et el and all those other countries hell bent on bringing down western civilisation.

I'd love nothing more than to watch NATO smash Russia's teeth in, but there are better alternatives IMO

onthedownlow
This is a sad day for the US. One has to wonder how strong the NATO alliance is, and how long it will be before it is tested. This is not the US I
know.

I would not agree with you on this.
This is a good day for US as there is finally someone in White House who understood that world is a different place now compared to 80',90' and early
2000. The time of US world domination (backed with brute force most of the time I must say) is gone.
We are heading into multipolar world, balance of power is changing. People need to understand and accept that.

For a president to just say we wont engage Russia in Ukraine like the way Obama did is basically telling Putin go for it. This game of geographic
poker Obama told Putin the hand US is playing does not even have a pair its a 10 high hand and we will fold if the bets get any higher.

The US should definitely not go into Ukraine. In my opinion Putin's aggression will stop with Crimea, for reasons I've outlined in a few threads
over the past couple of days, the most important of which is maintaining strategic control over the region, as it is important to Russia's overall
peacetime military strategy...and would be more important during wartime. Anyway, that is why I think Putin did what he did in the Crimean, and I
think that is the end of it.

He knows that if he pushes things too far, other nations will have no choice but to intervene. But what people fail to realize is that the US doesn't
go into these other countries out of a sense of morals, or even because of treaty obligations, unless they're getting something in return. There is
always an ulterior motive. If this was not the case, then the US should have gone into many countries over the past couple of decades, which didn't
happen. So it is not about preserving peace or establishing America's skewed view of democracy.

It is about money, power, establishing regimes that can benefit the US, etc...It isn't so much these motives that bother me, but it is the consistent
lying to the American people. This government has veered so far from what our founders intended.

If the balance of power is going to change, I do not want to see the West go quietly. NATO is the only tool that has kept communism in check, and to
watch NATO back I g down from Russia again is going to set a presedence that weakens the US and Europe. I guess the current administration doesn't
quite grasp the size of the target on our backs.

bubab
So let the Svoboda party get their nukes, the world will turn on them in a flash and every Ukranian around the world will have a very unhappy life.

You keep banging this drum, but never really back it up, usually citing the excuse "I'm not your butler...", but I am going to point this out
anyway...

Only 4 members of the Cabinet in Kiev hail from this far-right party and one of those is a former Admiral (now Defence Chief). The other 3 are elected
members of Parliament for a party that, in 2012, gathered over 10% of the vote so clearly there is support within Ukraine. The other 17 members of the
cabinet, including the PM and 2 of the 3 Vice PM's hail from centrist or unaffiliated political groups.

The way you bang on about it though makes it sound like they are running the Government, which is clearly not the case and regardless of their
ideology, surely it is down to the Ukrainian people who they vote for and has little to do with you agreeing with their policies or not.

As for the OP - while I think openly ruling out a military option only hamstrings your choices, there is quite a bit else we can do to Russia that
will have far wider consequences than engaging them in battle. The EU countries who buy Russian gas are already looking at alternate gas supplies,
from Qatar or Norway for example.

Once these have been sorted, there is a genuine push to get off the Russian supply as clearly they use it as a political tool. Without the $100
Billion they get every year from EU countries for gas, Russia is screwed - they have nothing else to offer the world in exports and have no other
supply mechanisms in place to shift the gas elsewhere quickly. Yes, they could sell to China or whatever, but they would have to build the pipelines
or gas terminals first.

I think NATO and nuclear weapons are total game changers when it comes to military action these days. Short of going to war with Russia, there isn't
a great deal the west can do. Even William Hague ruled out military intervention a week before the Crimean election, so the west's intent has been
quite clear for sometime now.

I hope Putin will stop at the Crimea. I don't believe he will go any further, risking cutting his nose off to spite his face.

I think many of the threads on ATS are a reflection of the American medias hysterical reporting of the situation and their obsession with making
everything about partisan politics.

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